WASHINGTON – A missile launched from a Navy cruiser soared 130 miles above the Pacific and smashed a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite Wednesday night, the Pentagon said.

Two defense officials said it apparently achieved the main aim of destroying an onboard tank of toxic fuel.

Officials had expressed cautious optimism that the missile would hit the satellite, which was the size of a school bus. But they were less certain of hitting the smaller, more worrisome fuel tank, whose contents posed what Bush administration officials deemed a potential health hazard to humans if it landed intact.

In a statement announcing the attack on the satellite, the Pentagon said, ‘Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours.’ It made no mention of early indications, but two defense officials close to the situation said it appeared the fuel tank was hit. One said observers saw what appeared to be an explosion, indicating the tank was hit.

Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said.

‘Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days,’ it said.

The USS Lake Erie, armed with an SM-3 missile designed to knock down incoming missiles – not orbiting satellites – launched the attack at 7:26 p.m., the Pentagon said. It hit the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in orbit at more than 17,000 mph.

The Lake Erie and two other Navy warships, as well as the SM-3 missile and other components, were modified in a hurry-up project headed by the Navy in January. The missile cost nearly $10 million, and officials estimated the total cost of the project was at least $30 million.

The launch of the Navy missile amounted to an unprecedented use of components of the Pentagon’s missile defense system, designed to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles in flight – not kill satellites.

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates – not a military commander – made the decision to pull the trigger.

Gates had arrived in Hawaii a few hours before the missile was launched. He was there to begin a round-the-world trip, not to monitor the missile operation. His press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters traveling with Gates that the defense chief gave the go-ahead while en route from Washington.

Morrell said Gates had a conference call during the flight with Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of Strategic Command, and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They told him that ‘the conditions were ripe for an attempt, and that is when the secretary gave the go-ahead to take the shot, and wished them good luck,’ Morrell said.

At 7:35 p.m., Gates spoke to both generals and ‘was informed that the mission was a success, that the missile had intercepted the decaying satellite, and the secretary was obviously very pleased to learn that,’ Morrell said.

The government organized hazardous-materials teams, under the code name ‘Burnt Frost,’ to be flown to the site of any dangerous or otherwise sensitive debris that might land in the United States or elsewhere.

Having lost power shortly after it reached orbit in late 2006, the satellite was out of control and well below the altitude of a normal satellite. The Pentagon determined it should hit it with an SM-3 missile just before it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, in that way minimizing the amount of debris that would remain in space.

Before Wednesday night’s intercept, some experts had expressed doubts about the seriousness of the risk and questioned whether the shot was an excuse to perform an anti-satellite test that many people around the world found controversial. Skeptics in the arms-control community have speculated that the administration chose to undertake the shoot-down partly so it can test potential anti-satellite weapons and missile-defense technology.

Scientists and arms-control advocates said the shoot-down was based on questionable modeling by the government of the risks to human health and a danger to the future peaceful use of space.

Some scientists calculated that the tank of fuel could not possibly survive a descent through the atmosphere, and others said that even if it did, the chances of anyone being injured were extremely small. Some worried that the U.S. decision to adapt a rocket designed for missile defense to serve as an anti-satellite weapon would encourage other nations to experiment with their own anti-satellite technology.

In January 2007, China shot down an old satellite orbiting about 600 miles above Earth and was roundly criticized by the United States and most other nations for doing so. That anti-satellite test created thousands of pieces of debris that will remain a potential hazard to spacecraft for decades.

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